Oakland settles with robber wounded by cops

Cousin of Grant still requires medical care

Published 4:12 pm, Saturday, January 11, 2014

A cousin of Oscar Grant who was shot and wounded by Oakland police investigating a holdup - a crime he was later convicted of committing - will receive a $125,000 settlement from the city.

The Oakland City Council is expected to approve the payout to Tony Jones this month. The council had previously agreed to the settlement in closed session "in order to avoid the risk of an adverse jury verdict under the circumstances," according to the city attorney's office.

Officials acknowledged that Jones was injured from the shooting and continues to require medical care.

Jones, then 24, was shot once in the back by Officer Cesar Garcia on the 2000 block of 62nd Avenue the night of Feb. 19, 2012, after he ran from a van that police had stopped. Shortly before the shooting, Jones and a second man robbed a man at gunpoint outside a liquor store, prosecutors said.

Police said Garcia had opened fire because Jones turned toward the officer while holding a handgun.

An Alameda County jury later convicted Jones of robbery and a weapons charge. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. But Jones filed a $10 million federal civil rights suit against the city, saying he had been unarmed and had "threatened no one."

Jones' attorney, Waukeen McCoy, said Friday, "While we are not happy with the jury's decision in Mr. Jones' criminal case, I can say that the settlement in the civil case provides some level of closure for my client. The issue of police shooting black men continues to be a problem in our communities and society at large today."

In May 2011, Garcia and Capt. Ersie Joyner shot and killed two men on Curran Avenue in Oakland. Police and prosecutors who investigated the incident said that the men had been intercepted on their way to carry out a killing, and that the officers had feared for their lives.

An excessive-force lawsuit filed by the families of the men who were shot is pending. Garcia has since taken a disability retirement.

Jones' mother is an aunt of Grant, the 22-year-old Hayward man who was unarmed when he was shot in the back and killed by then-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle early New Year's Day 2009 at a train station in Oakland. Mehserle, who testified that he had mistakenly fired his gun while intending to shock Grant with a Taser, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.